Painless
by TheTalkingGrape
Summary: Lance is a famous pop-idol and at the top of his game. Keith's alternative punk band just broke up. Shiro and Allura are desperate to make this work. It should be pretty painless. Right?
1. Prologue

**A/N:** This was supposed to be chapter one, but I think it works better as a stand alone prologue. I was planning on writing this story fully from Lance's POV, but please let me know if you would like to see a few parts from Keith/Shiro/Allura's POV instead, or even another character. I could try to swing it. I'm mostly doing this for practice, and also to indulge in my selfish ships, so feel free to throw suggestions and criticism my way!

* * *

 **Painless**

"No. Not gonna do it. How would that even work? Oh wait, I don't care, because I'm not doing it." Lance heard Allura sigh over the phone as he rooted around his fridge for something to eat. He settled on an apple and regretted his decision as soon as he bit into it, wincing at the cold. "Aaaah ahhaaa."

"Lance, listen to me. Shiro and I have been talking this over and we think it would be very good for both of you. Not just for your careers, but for _you_." She paused for a moment, probably expecting Lance to respond. Instead, however, all she got were his pained whimpers as he tried to figure out why the hell he even kept apples in the fridge in the first place. They were bowl fruit. You keep them in a bowl. Out of the fridge. On display. To make people believe that you eat healthy. Lance glared over at his dining table, where he _would_ keep his bowl of fruit if it weren't for the fact that it was covered in miscellaneous papers, notebooks, and folders full of more papers and random pages of sheet music.

"Allura, listen to me. How the hell would a top of the charts pop-star and the lead singer of some dirty garage band even manage to collaborate? We both have entirely different styles." He could hear Allura sigh through the phone. She was getting annoyed with him. That either meant that she was going to give in soon, or he was going to be forced to do something that he didn't want to because she 'is not in the mood to put up with your drama today _Lance_.' "Besides, that guy's band split up. He doesn't _have_ a career anymore." And from what Lance heard, it was his fault that everyone left. He sounded like a pain in the ass to work with when you all had a common interest, forcing Lance to work with him would surely result in death and destruction.

"The Paladins just broke up hardly a week ago! He still has a considerable fanbase to work with, and besides, the differences in your styles is exactly why we want you two to partner up. Endless possibilities for experimentation and growth. The good outweighs the bad, no matter what you think." Lance groaned and wandered into the living room so that he could flop down in a chair as he continued to pensively eat his apple. "It's just one song Lance. You've recorded singles in less than a week before and they were hits! You'll barely have to deal with him." She did have a point. Although those songs were purely just because he had been lucky enough to get a phrase or a series of notes and chords stuck in his head. It wasn't like he could get this project done in a week. Not with all the challenges he was facing. "Come on, Lance. The fans would love it."

Lance sighed dramatically and sprawled out on the chair he was sitting in, throwing the hand that was holding his apple over his forehead. He was going to regret this. "If I say I'll do it, will you stop calling me every three seconds on my day off?"

"No."

Lance snorted. "Of course not. I'll talk to you later Allura. If you guys can convince him to get on board with this we'll have to work out some kind of schedule, I guess." Allura clapped excitedly as Lance reflected on the horrible decision he had just made.

"You won't regret this, Lance. I'll call you later." With that she hung up, no doubt to tell Shiro that one half of their little experiment was ready to go. He was _so_ going to regret this.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: So I probably should just hold onto this and make it longer and better, but hey, then I wouldn't be updating this the day after I posted it so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

* * *

For a while, Lance almost thought that Allura had either forgotten about her little project or maybe that her and Shiro were just unable to wrangle the Mullet Menace. Sadly, neither of these things turned out to be true and he was awoken at an ungodly hour on a Wednesday morning by a call from Allura. He was half-tempted to ignore it, but it was early and he wasn't in the mood to bring Allura's wrath down upon himself. He fumbled around for a moment to reach his phone on his nightstand, knocking his lava lamp over in his struggles. Why did he even have that thing? He finally managed to grab his phone, answering just in time to hear the end of Allura yelling at someone to… stop trying to fit an entire donut in their mouth? Lance snorted, getting Allura's attention. "Oh, Lance, you're awake! Good." Actually, he was _not_ awake, but he didn't bother to tell Allura that. "Be at the studio in an hour." Lance opened his mouth to protest, but Allura hung up before he could even get the beginning of his sentence out. He let out a drawn out groan and rolled over, planning on getting a few more minutes of sleep before he had to get ready, but he drastically over-estimated the amount of space that was left on his bed and he ended up on the floor. What a great way to start the day.

* * *

Lance arrived at the studio about twenty minutes late, Starbucks vanilla latte in hand. He ignored Allura's glare, he was well aware that dairy was the last thing he should be ingesting before working on music. Honestly, however, he didn't think they would even get past the introductions. "Sup, Princess. What's on the agenda for today?"

"You're lucky they had to go back to get a few things, otherwise you'd be in huge trouble for being late." Lance rolled his eyes. Allura's version of 'huge trouble' was just making him stay a little later to work, which he usually did anyways when he was getting into a song. Contrary to popular belief, Lance did actually enjoy what he did, and he wanted to be good at it. Even if his easy going attitude made it seem otherwise. He raised an eyebrow at Allura, waiting for her to answer his question. She sighed and placed a stack of papers in front of him. "Mostly just signing contracts and working out what exactly the game plan is for you two." Lance stared at the pile of packets and loose papers sitting before him.

"So you're saying that you guys didn't even figure out what we're supposed to be _doing_ yet?" Allura sighed and slapped a pen down in front of Lance, choosing not to answer his question. He figured that she had her reasons. He liked to give her a lot of grief, but he knew that she worked hard and was probably just behind because of a certain punk alternative artist that shall not be named.

Speak of the devil… As Lance was paging through the documents and signing on all the dotted lines a voices began to grow closer. He could make out the familiar voice of Allura's partner in crime, Shiro, and the other one he figured was his new _partner._ He internally grimaced at the use of the word. He figured he would have to get used to it for the time being, at least until they busted out this song and then went their separate ways.

"I'm telling you, Shiro, it was aliens. Cats don't just _do_ that." The door swung open and Lance glanced up to see what was probably the most ridiculous (ly attractive) human being on planet earth. He knew what the guy looked like from looking up videos of his performances to see what kind of person he would be dealing with, but this? This was _not_ Keith Kogane. This person was way too short, five foot six at the tallest. He was wearing _fuzzy pajama pants. With little UFO's on them._ His famous mullet was pulled up into a small ponytail and there were dark circles under his eyes that made him look like he had gotten a total of two hours of sleep in the past five days. He clung to the coffee in his hands like it was the only thing keeping him alive at that moment and his shirt looked like he made it himself on zazzle, with a full paragraph of text on how awesome space is _._ He looked entirely like he had just rolled out of bed and into the car that morning, probably only taking enough time to get his coffee.

Shiro laughed and thumped Keith on the back, nearly sending the poor guy tumbling forward. He clearly wasn't awake enough for that kind of human contact. He took a moment to right himself, eyes locking with Lance's when he looked up from the floor. Lance cleared his throat and averted his gaze to the stack of papers in front of him that were still waiting to be signed, ignoring the way his cheeks were heating up. Shiro sat down next to him and gestured towards Keith. "Lance, I'm sure you and Keith know _of_ each other, but allow me to properly introduce you. Lance, this is Keith Kogane, former lead singer of The Paladins and professional pain in my ass. Keith, this is Lance McClain, current chart topper and Allura's worst nightmare." Keith waved, taking a seat across from Lance at the table as Allura shoved another stack of papers in his direction. His eyes widened and Lance would've felt bad for the guy if he wasn't currently filling out the same exact paper work.

Lance flashed his best 'I'm charismatic and you're in love with me now' smile at Keith and nodded in greeting. "Pleased to finally meet you. I've been begging Allura to arrange this meeting for weeks now. I'm a big fan of your wor—"

"I call bullshit." Keith cut Lance off mid-sentence, leaving Lance with his mouth hanging open in shock and looking like an idiot. Allura politely covered her mouth to hide the fact that she was laughing. Shiro snorted. Keith took a lengthy sip of his coffee before continuing. "I was on board with this collab before my band even broke up, that's how long it took for Allura to convince you to even sit in the same room with me. Don't pretend like you like me. The only reason I'm here now is because I'm desperate, and because, due to some twisted government conspiracy, we have an overlapping fan base."

Lance closed his mouth, his plans to at least attempt to get along with Keith flying right out the window. Who the hell did this guy think he was? He was _right,_ but that didn't mean he had any right to tell Lance off like that. Lance opened his mouth to retort, but was cut off by Allura slapping her hand down on the stack of papers in front of him. "Lance. Sweetie. The quicker you fill these out, the quicker we can actually get something done. I know work is a bit of a foreign concept to you, but we really need to get moving." Keith laughed and it took all of Lance's willpower not to smile at how _pretty_ his laugh sounded. He forced a neutral look onto his face, which probably came across as more of a pout, as he finished filling out the paper work, barely even looking over any of it. Keith, however, took a solid half hour to read over every last paper before he bothered to sign anything. The guy was seriously paranoid. What, did he think that the fine print stated that Lance was plotting to steal all the credit for a song that was most likely never going to make it past production? Lance was an asshole, but he wasn't _that_ bad. Lance fidgeted with his pen while he waited for Keith to finish up with his paper work, accidentally flinging it across the table multiple times. He ignored the annoyed looks it earned from Keith and continued to wiggle it between his fingers, clicking it every few seconds until Keith finally slammed his pen down on the table, a clear sign that he was done. Both with the work and with Lance's shit.

Lance gave Keith his best shit eating grin and Allura clapped her hands together in both an attempt to get their attention and to keep the peace. "Okay, then. Now that all of that ugly paper work is out of the way, I think it's time we talked business."

The next few hours were spent discussing what exactly the game plan was and the time frame they had to bust out a song. Keith, surprisingly, had a lot of valid input and seemed like he genuinely was focused on making this work somehow. Lance on the other hand, wouldn't stop trying to balance his pen on his upper lip. When Keith made a comment on how a little help from the other writer of the song would be nice, Lance defended himself by saying that he could only make his art when he was inspired. It wasn't entirely untrue, his best works were often created in a frenzy just a few days before their deadline. Although, he might've been confusing 'inspiration' with 'panic.'

Around the fourth time the pen fell from Lance's lip, Shiro leaned forward and picked it up before Lance could. He crossed his arms and pouted like the child he was as Shiro stood up to summarize everything they had just gone over. Mostly for Lance since he clearly wasn't paying attention. "Okay, so, Keith. You and Lance will work on the song whenever you two have free time. We don't know your schedules as well as you do, so you'll have to find time to work together. We'll meet back here every two weeks to check up on the progress and hopefully start recording sooner rather than later." He looked over at Lance, who was now balancing his chair on two legs and was somehow intensely fascinated by the dots on the ceiling tiles. "Are we clear?" Lance gave him an absent-minded thumbs up as he continued to count the ceiling speckles and Keith mumbled out a quiet 'yeah.' Shiro figured that was as good as he was going to get and he grabbed his things to leave.

Lance leaned forward so that his chair was back on all fours and stretched, turning to face Allura. "Alright, so now that the boring stuff is out of the way, what's _really_ on the agenda for today?" He paused for a moment and tilted his head in confusion as he saw Allura packing up her stuff. "Oh, are we really just done for the day? I thought we would at least start on _something_." Allura ruffled Lance's hair and smiled.

"No Lance, _I'm_ done for the day. With this at least. Shiro and I have business elsewhere. If you had been listening, you would know that Keith had offered to stay and work on your song with you since he doesn't have plans for the day, and since I happen to know for a fact that you don't have plans either, I took him up on the offer for you." Shiro held the door open for Allura as she made her way out, stopping to shake Keith's hand. "It was a pleasure to meet you. Don't worry, I know it seems bad now, but working with Lance isn't as awful as it seems. If you just ignore him when he's being overdramatic it can be relatively painless." Lance glared at the back of her head as she left the room, followed shortly by Shiro. The door shut quietly behind them, leaving Lance and Keith alone together.

Keith shrugged and pulled out a notebook as Lance continued to glare at the door like if he stared hard enough it would open up and swallow him out into the void of space so that he wouldn't have to spend the next however long with the Ponytailed Avenger that sat before him. Keith cleared his throat, clearly trying to get Lance's attention. Lance squinted at the door, wrinkling his nose in concentration. Keith started talking. "Right. So, I was thinking we could diverge from out styles all together. Maybe make something slower and more rhythmic than we're used to. Instead of just combining our styles and hoping for the best, we could actually create something new."

Swaying his head back and forth like he was actually considering what Keith had said, Lance grabbed his own notebook out of his bag along with his 'special song writing pen.' "See, that sounds like a great idea. A huge risk. It may or may not work. If it does, it'll be great. If it doesn't it won't even make it onto our wiki pages." Keith nodded, a serious look on his face. He was all business now. He had clearly calculated the risk to reward ratio of the move. Lance, however, wasn't as willing to take as many risks with his career. "I like people that are willing to take risks. It means that they fail more often and make more room for me at the top." He grinned at Keith who glared at him in return. He leaned forward, taking a more serious tone. "Really, though, I still actually _have_ a career left to lose. I'm not willing to dance with danger like you're suggesting we do. I think we should do something fast and catchy. Something everyone will love for a month and then regret buying on itunes every time it comes on shuffle after that." Keith wrinkled his nose as Lance pitched his idea.

"So you're suggesting we make something like 'Friday' or 'Call me Maybe?'" Keith pushed his notebook away from himself and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Listen, whether you're willing to believe it or not, my band breaking up wasn't the end of my career, and I'm risking a lot just by letting the public know that we'll be working together. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the pretentious assholes that tend to indulge in the alternative genre aren't generally accepting of you and your work."

"I thought you said we had a large overlapping fan base?" Lance leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms.

Keith rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "I never said it was large. I said it was overlapping. Maybe one fifth of my fans would be caught dead listening to pop music in general, even less would be caught alive listening to _you._ "

Lance mock-gasped and feigned offense. "How dare you insult me when you're the one that came crawling to _me_ for the opportunity to work together?" Keith snorted. Lance tapped his nails on the table, all the humor having left his face. "Seriously, I don't have to be here. I can go if you really think working with me is such a horrible thing."

For a moment, something that looked like actual worry flashed across Keith's face and Lance tilted his head in confusion. Keith turned his gaze to the notebook in front of him, clearing his throat before Lance could confirm whether or not he actually saw what he thought he saw. "Look, all I'm saying is that the choices I'm being presented with right now are to let my career die out quietly and slowly," He held up his index finger. "Kill if off in one fell swoop with our own rendition of a Punk Goes Pop cover," Another finger. "Or take a risk that may or may not pay off for _both_ of us." He held up a third finger, wiggling them at Lance. He let his hand drop back into his lap and shrugged, clearly defeated already. Lance felt a strange weight in his chest, like it was having a physical effect on him to see someone who was clearly passionate about what they do so close to just giving up. He _knew_ that Keith was passionate. He wouldn't have agreed to work with the guy without doing some extensive research on him first. What his research didn't tell him, however, was how killer the dude's puppy dog eyes were.

"Look, I'm sorry. I really am. But I'm just not willing to kill off everything I've worked for on the off chance that it could keep you afloat." Keith was resting his face in his hand, staring forlornly at whatever had been written down in his notebook, clearly already going through the seven stages of grieving over his career. He was obviously at the point of acceptance that Lance was most likely not going to budge on his offer. It was either punk pop garbage or nothing.

"Thank you for your time." Finishing off his coffee and tossing it in the trash, Keith grabbed his bag and turned to leave, pausing for a moment as if he was waiting for Lance to stop him. He didn't.

* * *

Lance sat in the silence of the room for a while after Keith walked out, wondering why exactly his chest felt so empty. It was like he was already regretting a decision he hadn't even made yet. Or maybe he was regretting _not_ making a decision? He groaned and flopped his face down on the table, burying his head in his arms.

He wasn't sure exactly how long he stayed like that, but he did know that it was long enough for the motion sensor in the room to shut the lights off. The sudden change in the atmosphere startled him and he bolted upright, frowning when the lights still didn't flicker back on. He waved his arms frantically above his head for a moment until the room finally lit up once more. He knew it was silly, but he still had to scan the room for any residual demons that were hanging out in the shadowy corners. His eyes caught on the notebook that Keith had been reading through during their conversation earlier. He figured that he just forgot it, or maybe he just didn't need it anymore since he was basically jobless. A wave of guilt his Lance, but he shook it off, reaching across the table to grab the notebook. He raised his eyebrow as he looked over the page that it was opened to. It was entirely blank. He flipped to the next page. Blank. He leafed through the pages, finding that all of them were completely empty. He was so focused as to why Keith seemed to care about the empty notebook so much that he nearly missed the folded up piece of paper that slipped out from between the pages and landed at his feet.

Reaching down to pick up the paper, Lance noticed that it had his name written on the front of it. He cocked his head in confusion before smiling to himself. Was this… A love letter? Did little Keith Kogane have a crush on him? Was this why he was so desperate to work with him? He unfolded the note, his face falling in disappointment. It was just bits and pieces of a song. A few lyrics scribbled in the margins, some chords along the bottom. Possible names for it scrawled at the top. It was the song that Keith had intended on working with him on.

There was a little number three and then a forward slash next to a question mark in the bottom right hand corner of the page. It was the third piece of paper Keith had filled with this stuff, and there were god knows how many more. Lance picked the notebook back up, shaking it until more folded up papers fell out of it, he counted five. He leafed back through the pages and checked the covers of the notebook for any more papers, finding two more before he was satisfied that he had gotten them all. He opened them all up, putting them in order, each page more coherent than the last. The final page seemed to be a nearly finished draft of the beginning of the song leading up to the chorus. There weren't any lyrics for the chorus, but the notes were there. The lyrics that Keith _did_ have were… incredible to say the least. He wasn't even sure what half of the words meant, but they felt personal. He wasn't sure if he was even actually supposed to ever see these. He felt like he was reading Keith's diary.

Lance could almost hear the song in his head, he just needed something more to help him piece it together. He grabbed the sheet and set it up at a nearby piano, glad that he was still in the studio so he could use a piano that was actually in tune instead of the piece of garbage that he practiced on at home. It took him a few tries, not sure if he was even reading Keith's sloppy handwriting correctly at first, but eventually he got into the flow of the song, the notes coming easily. He could almost hear the harmony and the base line that would flow underneath the melody like the veins and the heartbeat of the song. He couldn't believe that something so slow and powerful had come from the Teen Emo Idle himself. He played through the song a few more times, singing the words under his breath and scribbling a few notes of his own onto the page. He grabbed his phone.

"Hey Allura, can you give me Keith's number?"

* * *

A/N: Comments and criticism is always appreciated! Let me know if you want to see a chapter from Keith's POV!


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